“it’s funny that you think you’re butch”

Twice in the past week I’ve had friends say this to me – “it’s so funny that you think you’re butch”. This comment is right up there with the standard exclamation “but you’re so pretty!” when I talk about what being butch means to me. Both make me roll my eyes. Both take me down a rung on the ladder of self-worth. Both are said with best intentions.

In this instance, my friends who think it’s “funny” are women of a certain age – over 45-50 – so I can imagine that being butch may come from a different era for them. I don’t know a lot about lgbt history, or even the feminist movement, but I know that back in the seventies the lesbian separatist movement cordoned off the butches into their own category and marched along without them. I posit that these friends of mine, being fairly feminist themselves, might still harbor the antiquated guidelines (and internal prejudices) borne from that decade. Because clearly they don’t realize that by telling me they think the words I find powerful to identify myself are “funny,” they force me back into a box of their own design, and injure my self-confidence with their thoughtlessness. Not that either of these women intended to hurt me – but the double-standard never ceases to amaze.

I want to ask them, what does “butch” mean to you? Neither of them are masculine-identified in any way. One is a bisexual-primarily-lesbian who admittedly prefers tomboyish women, the other is an ardent member of the gay-rights intelligentsia with a gay son and more lesbian friends than place-settings. I want to ask them, how does my appropriation of this word, which makes me feel strong in myself, cause you to laugh?

To me, being butch is a lot of very simple things and a lot of very complicated things. These things are not the same for everyone.

The simple things include: my choice of clothes, style, haircut. The simple, strong lines I use to define my life. The fact that I open doors for women, carry heavy loads, use tools with ease and dexterity, wear classic leather shoes. I prefer wood to lace. I prefer evergreen to lavender.

The complicated things include: they way I feel when I’m in a group of women talking about men, the negotiations I make with myself when I’m dressing for an event, the fact that I’m attempting a career that brands you by your appearance first. The number of times in a week I’m called sir or ma’am. The fact that I prefer my girlfriend in a dress and myself in a tie, but that might mean anything in the bedroom. The fact that my identity can’t be summed up in tidy little words.

I would love to know more about what my friends’ identities mean to them, and I’m sure that while I might smile at their answers, “funny” won’t be my first reaction.

I’ve written and thought a lot about this. Specially since there seems to be this stereotypical box that come with labels within our community. It’s such a contradiction to have labels within our community but I think that’s more about just being human.

For me, being butch is just about being me. My own definition, for myself, came to me after attending the Butch Voices Conference back in 2010.

“I challenge gender stereotypes on a daily basis simply by existing in this world. I’ve grown comfortable and almost proud of the fact that I am called “Sir” on a daily basis. On the outside I may look like a man, but under these boots, jeans and t-shirt, I am all woman. Comfortable and confident in these clothes and in this skin. I am me.”

Absolutely. Thank you for this, Wendi. Your writing from the conference is inspirational. I wanted so badly to go this past year! Now I know I’ll have to prioritize in the future. (Also – thank you for the lovely shout-out last month, I’ve been meaning to express my gratitude.)

I got the same reaction from folks when I was younger, but it was primarily from other butches. It was confusing for me, because no other word came close, and I identified with the space that word occupied. Once I came out, I could physically take the space my body needed (in my clothing and in my movie theater seat), but I didn’t have to ascribe to traditionally masculine ways of identifying with women. ”Butch” allowed me freedom to be nellie with my gay male friends; “butch” compelled me to answer the call of heavy lifting when no one else volunteered; “butch” cemented my otherness among straight people. No one could make a compelling argument for my femme status, either.

In a way, this butch dismissal undercut the necessary delusions I had to cling to in order to leave the house every day dressed in men’s clothing. Language matters. It just does. In attempting to live authentically, I’ve found language around my identity to be an exercise in futility. I wish I could just be like: I’m me! and then stop thinking about it. I can’t.

I’m interested in this: “the way I feel when I’m in a group of women talking about men.” Can you speak to that a little more?

In my preferred company (women), I find myself in a precarious position as trans-identified on the ftm spectrum. I don’t know how I’m supposed to situate myself within female-identified folks, so I tend to overcompensate and consciously tamp overt masculinity to ensure emotional safety of those around me. I become one of the girls again. That’s not as honest as I’d like it to be, but otherwise, the tiny thrilling hairs at the bottom of my chin preclude any connection that feels familiar to me. I can’t have it both ways.

Hi Jack – thanks for bringing up another facet: “No one could make a compelling argument for my femme status, either…I wish I could just be like: I’m me! and then stop thinking about it. I can’t.” It’s interesting that your questioning friends were other butches – I have very few butch friends (sadly), but because of my size and stature most of my fellow butches totally get it. It’s the well-meaning straight folks that worry for my (feminine) well-being. 🙂

And in regards to the way I feel when I’m with women talking about men – I think those are the moments when I feel most other. Listening to women speak about their boyfriends/husbands, or guys they are interested in, or guys they see out in public, I feel like an alien. I feel both incredibly butch, and incredibly naive, and it’s impossible for me to be anything other than awkward and quiet. I think often my female acquaintances and friends forget or ignore that my appearance also denotes a lifestyle and a fundamental difference between us, and those moments when I’m called to listen/contribute to that particular conversation turn the spotlight on that divide. I will never be one of the girls – even if I’m “too pretty to be butch,” in their opinion.

I think it’s really interesting that you feel like that particular kind of alienation is about being butch, and not just about being gay. I’m really femme, and I would say that that situation has always been when I feel the most alienated from straight women, too. Even before I understood that I was a lesbian, I felt like an outsider when other girls would talk about boys.

Being feminine and liking men are not the same thing–what do you think it is about that situation that makes you feel specifically butch, rather than just gay?

Also–there ARE butch straight women. Your gender expression and your sexuality don’t *necessarily* go together, even if they appear together more often than not…

Hi Kimberly,
That’s a really great point. I don’t necessarily think this kind of alienation is solely about being butch and *not* gay, but since I am both I can only make conjectures about what the experience of being gay and femme would feel like. If I were femme, would I relate more to straight women? I have no idea – I can only guess maybe, yes, since the subtler language of style and tastes could then be shared. When you aren’t femme there are a lot of “female” rituals you don’t necessarily take part in, everything from putting on daily makeup, choosing to match your purse to your outfit, heck even whether or not you shave your legs is up for grabs. And of course, these are superficial differences and are not relegated to straight women alone, but they can make up a surprising amount of a woman’s day and experience, gay or straight. And when straight femme women are talking about how long it takes them to get ready to go out with their boyfriends, well, as a butch there is practically no part of that conversation that I can relate to, specifically. I can offer opinions, but otherwise I am very, very quiet. And the girls who forget/try to ignore that I’m not exactly ‘one of the girls’ then tend to get a little awkward as well, because, really, what can we talk about?
I also have to point out that I live in Los Angeles and deal mostly with under-25, straight, female actresses and models, many of whose entire day is about how they look and how they relate to men. It’s not a typical situation.

This is really interesting to me, because I’ve more often heard its funny to my friends (always my gay friends) that I don’t identify as butch. I wear clothes sold in the men’s department and I have a haircut generally considered “appropriate” for a man so they label me that way. I don’t identify as butch because, in my experience, there is nothing that inherently connects to clothes I wear or the hairstyle I prefer to masculinity, that’s just the ways it “typically” presented in our world. My experience of having that labelled inaccurately applied to me is far, far from having a label I do identify with being questioned. I’ve only been in a handful of situations where people questioned whether I actually was gay (family, usually) and it was incredibly painful to have someone doubt something that was such a core part of how I identified. I’m sorry this happened to you.

Hi Suze, thank you for the note (and sympathy). 🙂 I LOVE that you don’t identify as butch – I’m always so impressed and taken by the women I’ve met who eschew any and all labeling and just wear and act however they please. It speaks to a level of security and self-knowledge that I hope to reach. I’m interested in your own definition of what butch is – I’m learning every day how personal it is for each of us, both those who claim the title and those who choose not to. And I hear you about having your family question your identity. My gf and I recently registered our domestic partnership, and my mother “didn’t have anything nice to say and therefore said nothing at all,” which is an improvement, but she also started asking, out of the blue, if I’ve seen certain of my male friends lately. Mom code for “why do you still think you’re abnormal?” It is painful. I choose to believe it makes us stronger, and I certainly take comfort in sharing stories with others. So, again, thank you!

Max, I appreciate the props, but my not identifying as butch is not really about trying to avoid labels. I strongly embrace the labels of lesbian and gay, they are meaningful and important to me and a big part of who I am. It’s just the label butch that doesn’t work for me. In my understanding the concept of butch rests upon the association of a host of things, from outward appearance (clothes, hairstyles) to behavior/mannerism, to personality characteristics, to interests and hobbies, with masculinity. In a very over-simplified way, in my understanding butch is someone who has ‘typically masculine’ roles, appearance, behavior, personality characteristics, interests, hobbies, etc. The hitch, for me, is that there is no reason to associate these qualities with masculinity (gender) or with males (sex). I can see that the mere existence of females with these qualities challenges the notion that these things are, in some way, really connected to male-ness. In my mind, though, I’d like to de-couple those ideas even further. I feel like the term butch continues the association between masculinity and a set of qualities and I prefer not to associate any qualities or characteristics with any gender description.

I want to be clear that this is all just a personal perspective and an explanation of why I do not choose butch as a label for me. I’m not making any statements about whether others should or should not use these terms for themselves. I read a lot of blogs by folks who identify as butch and I feel a lot of kinship with them and can share in many of the experiences they’ve related, hell some of my best friends are butches! 🙂

Anyway, this may have been more than what you were looking for, but there it is!